Persistent exp problem driving me insane.

[Merg Ross]

I don't believe that you mentioned bellows extension. If any, have you compensated accordingly with an exposure increase?

[Tin Can]

Switch from Spot Metering to Incident.. you may be over thinking your exposures a common problem

Also I have been making negs for a long while and I only use the sunny f 16 .. pretty dam simple and very reliable.

I will refer to a incident meter indoors and with hot lights.

expose for your open shadows if you are working outside.

+1 on Sunny 16. The exposure should make sense without meters, of course as Bob says, outside only.

I shot S-16 all my life. I bet a lot of us did, as 35mm came with those instructions printed inside the box. Never had a meter or camera with a meter for 40 years.

But I still compose lousy images.

[Tin Can]

I also suggest to do what i often do.

Shoot a roll of 35mm using Sunny 16 in different light and aperture. Don't worry about composition or content, just check your Sunny 16 exposure judgement.

If you can shoot good exposures on 35 mm you can do LF the same exact way.

[Richard Wasserman]

I've found Sunny 11 to work better than 16....

I also suggest an incident meter, which you still need to learn how to use.

[Bill Burk]

RodinalDuchamp,

D-76 straight, or diluted 1:1? At 1:1 my standard time is around 13 minutes, several sheets in trays with constant shuffling.

My first thought is maybe you need longer time in the developer.

[RodinalDuchamp]

I have tried incident metering as well. I have even metered incident in shadow and in brighter areas and tried averaging them.

[RodinalDuchamp]

RodinalDuchamp,

D-76 straight, or diluted 1:1? At 1:1 my standard time is around 13 minutes, several sheets in trays with constant shuffling.

My first thought is maybe you need longer time in the developer.

D76 1:1 sorry for omitting that. I have a sloshed and use constant agitation. I thought it might be underdevelopment because I have tried every kind of exposure metering and I have even attempted overexposure and none of my negatives come close to being over exposed.

I think a good course of action will be an exposure test in shade removing the slide 1/4 out thereby stacking exposures to see where the good thick negative lies, this will determine if my meter is off and roughly how many stops.

Once I get that established maybe then try playing with Dev times again.

I get pretty decent results in other formats so I think it has to be something in LF that is variable, and that would be Dev.

[RodinalDuchamp]

I will run a test tonight if I can. A controlled lighting indoor shot. 2 shots both at the same exposure but developing one at 8 min and a second at 13 min to see what happens.

[jeroldharter]

You did not mention the dilution or temperature of the developer. Possibly both are too low.
You should do an exposure test with bracketed exposures and varied development times (fairly simple with tray development) to ferret out your problems.

[RodinalDuchamp]

You are right. 1:1 500ml h2O + 500ml D76 at 72* sorry I'm american I don't know what that is in C